


Incremental

by keysmash



Category: Stargate: Atlantis
Genre: Ceremony, Community: sticksandsnark, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Off-World, Team, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-20
Updated: 2010-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:18:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysmash/pseuds/keysmash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you never find it lonely?" Teyla asked eventually. "Being alone. Among strangers."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incremental

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisissirius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisissirius/gifts).



> Written for [](http://thisissirius.livejournal.com/profile)[**thisissirius**](http://thisissirius.livejournal.com/), for [](http://community.livejournal.com/sticksandsnark/profile)[**sticksandsnark**](http://community.livejournal.com/sticksandsnark/). She asked for hurt/comfort, and team fic on the side. Originally posted April 2007.

**1/5**

"You are not of the same people as much of the expedition."

They were off-world again, planet MX3-no-visible-technology. Rodney and Teyla were walking about five meters behind Sheppard and Ford.

"Hmm?" Rodney slid his scanner back onto his belt, then looked at Teyla. She looked back and raised one eyebrow. "Well, technically, no, we're all from Earth. I'm not."

"But I have heard you speak of your own," Teyla paused; she pursed her lips very slightly, which Rodney had started to assume meant she was searching for the right word, "country many times, Doctor. There is a distinction between you and the others, is there not?"

"Oh, Canada, yes," Rodney said. "Yes, I am from a different country as some of the others. The Major and Ford, for example, are not intelligent enough to have been born there. It's one of many distinctions between them and me."

As if on cue, Sheppard kicked a fair-sized rock along the path, and Ford ran after it. He kicked it further along once he reached it. Teyla and Rodney walked silently for a while, watching them. From time to time, one of the two of them rolled their eyes. Ford started dribbling the rock.

"Do you never find it lonely?" Teyla asked eventually.

Rodney, whose train of thought had already moved on, was thrown for a loop. "Find what lonely?"

"Being alone." Teyla adjusted something on her weapon. "Among strangers."

"No." Rodney snorted. "They're not strangers. In fact, being lonely would be a nice change. I'm surrounded by idiots on far too regular a basis."

Teyla nodded tersely and didn't otherwise reply. Rodney watched Ford for a while (he had abandoned the first rock, and was now tossing a smaller one from hand to hand), then checked the scanner again. The power signature they were following was stronger, which meant closer, but it didn't look too promising. Rodney bet huts, not houses.

He glimpsed Teyla's hands as he buckled the scanner back into place. One was still securely on her P-90, but the other traced a slim leather cord tied to one belt loop. An intricately carved bead dangled from one end, and she rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger. Rodney looked curiously at Teyla's face, noting the BDUs, the Earth weapon, the haircut, as his eyes shifted upward. Her lips moved slightly, repetitively. Save for that strip of leather, that low and steady murmuring, she could have passed for a Marine.

Rodney had been prepared for his roommate to hate him, his first year of undergrad, for his professors to speak down to him, for his classmates to shoulder him aside in the labs. The reality of the situation was both better and worse. Instead of being mistreated, he was ignored. He didn't _want_ to go to frat row, and his professors were largely mouth-breathers, and his classmates couldn't _begin_ to keep up with him--but neither did he want to be by himself, all the time. After five weeks and two days, he started bringing his lunch to the science building and his dinner to the library. A cafeteria full of noisy strangers turned out to be worse than a table of silent family.

"It was hard at first, though," he said softly. "At first, I hated it."

Teyla looked up at him with tight eyes. She considered him for uncomfortably long, and he felt her gaze still on him after he glanced down at his feet.

"Yes," she said eventually. Sheppard called out, a laugh and a reprimand at once, as Ford pegged him in the foot with the rock, and they both looked up. "But beginnings are often difficult."

 

**2/5**

Rodney came across Teyla where the corridor turned into a balcony, curving along the exterior of the city in between two doors. She sat cross-legged with easy grace, a hand on each knee, facing the ocean. The moon, full and heavy above the horizon, glinted its reflection off her eyes and hair.

He hadn't been looking for her--he'd been headed to the mess, then to his quarters for a shower, then back to the lab--and he didn't slow as he passed behind her. He was almost to the far door when she spoke.

"Would you join me for a moment, Doctor McKay? I have a question I would ask you."

One hand was already stretched to wave the door open. He rolled his eyes and huffed, but let it fall back to his side and turned to face her. "I assume you mean a different question than the one you just asked?"

Teyla ignored him. "Which season of the year is it, currently?"

Rodney blinked, then crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. "Ok, see, the problem here is that you've mistaken me for a TV personality. I'm sure there's a weather girl somewhere in this rabble, and he'll be hard-pressed to perform without a teleprompter and a green screen, but he is still the appropriate person to ask questions about weather nonsense. The days are warm, the nights are cool, so as far as I know, it could be spring, summer, fall--hell, it could be winter, for all we know. We haven't been here long enough to tell, and I certainly don't plan on spending enough time outside to care."

Teyla nodded, having extracted the answer from the blustering. "My people are also unsure of the season. There has been some conflict as to which moon is currently in the sky."

"This matters because?"

"Athos is in winter at present, and there are some who believe we should observe the festivals in keeping with the old progression of seasons." Teyla rolled her neck from side to side. After an efficient series of cracks, she sighed and continued. "There are others, though, who point out that it appears to be spring on this planet, and feel we should adjust our celebrations accordingly. It has been a source of many arguments, and I fear it may split my people into factions."

Rodney looked up. The moon hung low in the sky. He pushed off the wall and crossed the balcony, then leaned against the railing and stared over the water. "What do you think?"

Teyla fold her hands in her lap and studied them. "If this is to be our home, we must change our ways. To carry on with the old festival schedule is to carry on thinking of a different place as home, and we will never be happy here if we do that."

"You don't think you're ever going to be able to go home, do you?"

Teyla was silent for a long time. "No."

Rodney nodded to himself, and for a while, remained quiet as well. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. "So, what's happening with the moon?"

"I have asked Halling to give a message that the spring ceremony is the appropriate celebration. He is leading that ceremony, but I will have no way of knowing if some among my people are holding the other."

"Wait, what? This is tonight? This moon, there?" Rodney looked back at her, pointing into the sky, and Teyla nodded. "Why are you here, then? Shouldn't you be chanting and dancing around a fire or something?"

Teyla smiled. "I would have preferred to be with my people, yes. But it was not feasible. The moon had already risen by the time we returned from our mission this afternoon. There was not a pilot free to take me to the mainland, and I would not have been able to return in time for Dr. Weir's meeting tomorrow morning if I had remained for the entire ceremony. I have marked the change of seasons on my own, rather than interrupt the full ceremony."

"That sounds depressing," Rodney said. Teyla didn't reply. "I thought you had to lead everything, what with being leader and all."

"That is customary, but is not required. Others with experience, and standing within the community, may lead the rites as well."

"Mmm." Rodney's stomach growled, and he laughed under his breath before pushing himself off the railing. "I don't suppose this celebration comes with a feast?"

Teyla tilted her head to look up at him. "Actually, there is a meal. We eat to signify the growth of the coming season, and the bounty of the earth."

"Well, they're serving mystery meat with assorted pseudo-vegetables tonight. How about we move past the solitary, depressing portion of the evening and go eat something?"

Teyla smiled, though it could have easily been a smirk. "The meal is traditionally served in the morning, after the darkest portion of the night has been spent in meditation."

"Oh," Rodney said, disappointed. "Really? Because I was on my way to the mess anyway, and I'm all for preserving your cultural heritage, but I need to be back in the lab soon, and I really don't have time to, god, _meditate_ before I eat, so--"

"No." Teyla stood, a liquid unfolding of limbs. "Not really." She moved away from the railing. "Food is served throughout the night." She laughed to herself as she walked through the door without turning back. Rodney stared for a second, then ran to catch up.

 

**3/5**

"What's that stain?" Rodney gestured at the dark brown smudge where John's thumb met his hand. John flexed his thumb a few times, and the mark danced over his tendon.

"No idea," he answered. "It won't wash off."

Rodney held up his hand and showed John his own, identical, stain. "Mine won't, either."

John raised an eyebrow. "Are we in a secret club I don't know about?"

"When did you notice it?" Rodney asked, ignoring John's comment. "Before or after yesterday's mission?"

John chewed his lip for a moment. "After," he started, then snapped his fingers and continued. "After dinner. I thought it was juice from that brown stuff botany keeps telling us is fruit."

"They didn't serve that yesterday, though."

"Yeah, that's why I thought it was weird."

"But not weird enough to do anything about once it wouldn't come off," Rodney said slowly. John shrugged. "Fine, well, what did you try?"

"Soap, then rubbing alcohol." John pulled a piece of paper from the bottom of his stack and skimmed it. "You're not actually worried about this, are you?"

Rodney had pulled up the _Mysterious Stain _spreadsheet and was entering text into the _Removal Methods--Tried _column. "We don't know what it _is_, Colonel, and since we both have the same mark in the same spot, yes, I'm slightly concerned."

"Maybe it's a reaction from your crazy sunscreen."

Rodney rolled his eyes and scrolled further through the spreadsheet. "A, I put it on my entire body, B, I've never had a reaction before, and C, you didn't use any of it. Play again."

"Maybe it's a marker for assassination, and only people with stains will be taken out."

"Ha ha," Rodney said. "Maybe it's a degenerative enzyme, and will slowly eat away at our thumbs until they fall off. You could act a little concerned about this, you know."

John rolled his eyes. "I'm not concerned about this, you know." He initialed his page in several places and dropped it on the floor. It floated down to join an untidy pile of approved requests. "If you actually think it's a big deal, ask Carson and stop bugging me."

"Fine. I will." Rodney snapped his laptop closed and scooped it up; he left his stack of papers on the chair next to him and headed out of the room. "You'll change your tune when it's eaten your thumb away."

"And get your stuff out of my office!" John called after him. He could hear Rodney storming down the hall, speaking rapidly into his radio. After a moment, John hooked his foot around Rodney's chair and pulled it to him. He put his feet up on Rodney's paperwork and continued skimming through his own.

Rodney was back for his things about an hour later, chattering on the radio. His hand was slightly red, but the mark was unfaded.

"And?" John asked. Rodney ignored him, and tried to lift John's feet away. John kept them firmly in place. He raised his eyebrows and waggled his stained thumb at Rodney. "_And_?"

Rodney scowled. "I'll get back to you," he said, "don't sink too much of the city." He tapped his radio off. "The immediate tests were nonconclusi--well, actually, they were pretty conclusive, and Carson won't run more detailed tests because of it, but even if we know what it is, we don't know what it's for, and that could clearly be more important, because--"

John cut him off. "Not a degenerative enzyme, I take it?"

Rodney's scowl deepened. "It's henna," he said, and grabbed his papers when John pulled his feet off the chair in a belly-laugh. "But," he rushed to continue, "like I said, we don't know what it's for. You may have been joking about the whole assassination marker thing, but I've been giving it some thought, and that may be a possibility. We are senior staff, and..." John shook his head at him, still laughing, and Rodney trailed off, then sat back down in the chair.

"Fine," he said. "I may have over-reacted slightly--yes, slightly--but it could have been important."

"Yes, you're right. It could have been the stain that ate Manhattan." John shoved the papers on the floor into something resembling a stack, then radioed Lorne to tell him the latest mission reports had been signed. "Now come on. Team dinner tonight."

Rodney straightened slightly in the chair. "Team dinner."

John nodded. "Elizabeth's approved Ronon to stay. Team dinner."

Rodney muttered, but John leaned one hip against his desk expectantly until Rodney finished, and came with him.

Dinner was quiet. Rodney tapped one-handed on his laptop and ate with the other. Teyla, who spent the day studying some new and zealous form of meditation, looked flushed and exhausted. John kept leaning back in his chair and smiling around the table, proud of himself. Ronon sat facing the door, and constantly scanned the room. He ate without looking at his food.

Rodney watched him while his computer ran a simulation. Ronon's enormous plate was nearly empty. He wrapped what was left in his napkin and tucked it into his coat. When he drew his hand out, Rodney saw a small stain on his thumb.

His eyes widened, and he sucked a breath between his teeth. "Shepp--" he started, but Teyla laid her hand over his before he could finish, and shook her head slightly. Glancing down, Rodney saw her own mark. He looked back up at her and frowned, but she shook her head again.

"Would you examine my door, Rodney?" she asked, overly-bright. "It does not open as smoothly as it once did." She nearly dragged him out of the mess, leaving their trays for John.

"Ok," Rodney said once they were in the hall. He wrenched his arm out of her grip. "What's going on? What's with the stain? It better not actually be an assassination marker."

"It is nothing such as that." Teyla looked around them--they were alone--and smoothed her hair with one hand. "It is meant to bond us together, into a team. Among my people, it is traditional for those who hunt together to mark themselves whenever a new member joins." She paused. "I took a liberty that I, perhaps, should not have, in marking you without your consent," and Rodney snorted in agreement, "but it is considered ill luck to speak of the marking, among the group. That is why I brought you away to explain."

"I gathered as much," Rodney said. Teyla didn't wince, but her eyes widened slightly, quickly. For just a moment, Rodney could see white all around her irises, and then her face was as calm as usual.

"I did not mean any harm," she said, softly, and traced her mark with the fingers of her other hand. "I meant to do this with Aiden, but there never seemed to be time." Rodney's chest tightened.

"Is there actually a problem with your door?" he asked, louder than he intended. Teyla looked up, and he smiled crookedly, awkwardly. "Because I can fix it, if there is."

 

**4/5**

Rodney rubbed his wrist as he regained consciousness, his fingers tugging at the IV taped to his skin. Teyla pulled his hand away and held it between her own.

Rodney opened his eyes, looked around the infirmary, and groaned. "Seriously?" He pinched the bridge of his nose, then peered at the IV. "Oh, and, I could have sworn I talked to Carson about switching hands. Sometimes I think he just likes hurting me. This one was, was _needled_ last time, Teyla, and it's not its turn again yet."

Teyla suppressed her smile. "You have been given medication for your injuries, Rodney."

"I noticed!" Rodney tried unsuccessfully to wave both hands around, but found himself tethered by the IV and by Teyla. "Your hair is sparkling. How long am I here for?"

"For the evening," Teyla said, "and possibly overnight."

Rodney nodded, then winced. "Oh, oww. Fast is bad." He turned his head, slowly, and saw a glass of water on the cart next to his bed. "Drink?"

Teyla released his hand, and he chased after her as she reached for the glass. "Would you like to hold it yourself?" She closed her free hand around his, and held the glass out to him. "Or would you rather I…?"

"I think you'd better." Each time Rodney blinked, his eyes stayed closed longer, but he took a few sips of water. "I told you they wouldn't want to trade. I told you that this was a bad mission."

"You did indeed." Teyla placed the glass on the floor, far enough from her chair that she wouldn't kick it. "But we are all home now, and safe."

Rodney hummed, and closed his eyes. "I never thought this would be home," he murmured. "It's so far away from where home always used to be."

Teyla thought of wind whipping outside a tent, of a fire surrounded by friends, of empty cities in the distance. "It is very far, yes."

"S'nice, though." Rodney smiled faintly, already fading. "Will you stay here until I wake up again?"

"Of course," Teyla said. After he slid back into sleep, Teyla folded her legs underneath her, and timed her breathing, and waited for him.

 

**1**

Rodney scrubbed at his face. Daylight was beginning to shine through the windows, and he hadn't made any significant progress. He found his coffee mug empty when he reached for it, and headed across the lab to brew another pot.

"Are you still working, Rodney?" He turned to find Teyla standing just inside the door, wearing her fighting skirt. She carried her sticks in one hand, and a rolled leather mat in the other. He nodded, and she frowned. "You should rest. It is very late."

"It's very early, now," Rodney said. He ran one finger over the empty coffee scoop. It came away covered in fresh grounds, and he licked them off. "Besides, the sooner this is finished, the sooner we can work at full power again. As it is, we're too exposed."

"We will be more exposed if you push yourself to incapacity." Teyla laid her gear on an empty corner of a table, and stood close to Rodney. He offered her the coffee scoop, and she shook her head. "This is important, but it is not urgent. You need to sleep."

"I need to figure out this equation," Rodney pressed, "if we're going to stay safe. I need us to be sa--" His words turned into a yawn. When he could close his mouth and open his eyes, he found Teyla's mouth set in a firm line.

"The city, in peace, in stability, does not require this sacrifice. If you will not go to your own quarters and rest, you will come with me. You will sleep while I meditate."

"But, there's already coffee…" Rodney looked back as the pot began to drip, but allowed Teyla to place her hands low on his hips and push him towards the door.

"No doubt Radek will think of your kindness when he arrives." Teyla gathered her things and closed the lid of Rodney's laptop. It beeped, but the lights on the side continued to flash. "Now come."

"I need to be back at least by the time the simulations are complete," Rodney said. The door hissed closed behind them as they left. "And I need to get something to eat before that." He took Teyla's sticks from her, and placed his other arm around her waist. "I should have gone with you last night. I didn't get anything worthwhile done."

She smiled. "But you have learned what does not work, correct?" Rodney nodded. "So now you can find what does."

"I suppose," Rodney said. Light streamed through the stained glass, and they walked down the hall.


End file.
